If, like me, you used to hide under the bedclothes with a radio as a youngster and listen to Soviet broadcasts describing fantastic achievements in agriculture and industry, you’ll appreciate this post on the Agriculture Commissioner’s official blog.

It’s Mariann Fischer Boel commenting on a Eurobarometer survey of public attitudes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). With a self-congratulatory headline of “CAP performing well, says silent majority“, she proceeds to celebrate that ordinary people think highly of CAP reform, that 58% think the budget should stay the same or rise, and that a clear majority think it’s a good idea to pay farmers directly instead of subsidising their products (ultimately, of course, there’s no difference to the taxpayer).

Now, the bad news

Unfortunately, this rosy picture is totally undermined when you actually look at the survey results.

Firstly, a clear majority of those surveyed (53%) have never even heard of the CAP. 4% didn’t know if they’ve heard of it or not. This really means that the surveyors should have stopped. They should have moved on to someone with at least a knowledge of what the CAP is, such as the 34% who’d heard of it but didn’t really know what it is (and that’s being charitable).

But no, they ploughed on. Having explained that EU money had been decoupled from production and was now being paid direct to farmers, respondents were asked if they thought that was a good or bad thing. 12% said they didn’t know. 52% said it was a good thing, even though some of them must still have been taking the existence of the CAP on board for the first time.

Getting the answer you want to hear

Moving on, we come to a real car-crash of an analysis, and a classic case of getting the answer you want. Asked whether the current agricultural budget is too high, too low, or just about right, 43% say it’s just about right - down by 2 points since last year. The authors give this finding a bold headline “A large section of opinion believes the current budget to be at the correct level“, then interpret it as “A relative majority (43%, -2 points since 2006) consider that the current proportion of the budget devoted to agriculture is ‘about right’”.

Finally, it’s worth noting how the survey prepares the ground for further regulation on food products and provides justification for the EU’s current communication strategy, which will see Brussels using TV and radio to pump out propaganda to the pliant population.

Nice alliteration.

The EU should give us more information, say the citizens!

Having earlier humiliated the respondents about their ignorance of the CAP and primed them to desire more information, a series of questions asks “would you like to be more informed about…agriculture… the CAP… how would you like to be informed?”.

Naturally the answers are positive - people would certainly like to be more informed. The next question should have been “Would you like the EU to inform you, or an independent source?” That would have put a small cat among some minor pigeons. But it would be too much to hope for.

So all is good in Mariann Fischer-Boel’s world. The CAP is performing well. The people are happy and they are looking to the EU to provide them with the information they need. A crackly Russian accent reaches me over the medium waves, faint but just strong enough to understand that tractor production is up and the harvest this year will be tremendous.

Hat-tip to CAP Healthcheck.